Madden 15 CFM Spotlight – Improve Your Confidence

Now that EA SPORTS has released information about Madden 15 CFM, I can dive a little bit deeper and spotlight some of the new things that EA has done. In this article I’ll talk specifically about Confidence and how that affects your team and my experience with it in the time I had a chance to play it. This will hopefully clear up some of the confusion for some people and offer some insight for others. If you still have additional questions about confidence, hit me up on twitter @Shopmaster or place a comment below.

Let’s get started with this Madden 15 Spotlight!

The confidence rating (1-99) is something new in Madden NFL 15 CFM and it replaces the HOT and COLD streak that you saw in Madden NFL 25 CFM. In Madden 15 the confidence rating is dynamic and will fluctuate based on what happens to the player and the team from week to week.

Here is a list of things that can affect a player’s confidence rating:

poor performances

home wins and losses

road wins and losses

trades

dropping or rising in the depth chart

rival games wins and losses

playoff games wins and losses

winning & losing streaks

close wins and losses

There may be other things but these are the ones that I know of and remember.

In my time with Madden NFL 15 CFM I chose the Buffalo Bills in my CFM and before week 2 I went to the Game Prep history and looked at a few players after a week 1 game that I barely pulled out at home to check out the confidence ratings of my DBs.

Here is what I found:

CB #24 S. Gilmore – Consistency 3 out of 5 | Dev Trait 3 out of 5

Recent Events:

We’re on a winning streak! +1 Confidence
We won a close game at home! +4 Confidence
I got a pick this week! +3 Confidence

————————————————————-

CB #20 C. Graham – Consistency 3 out of 5 | Dev Trait 1 out of 5

Recent Events:

We’re on a winning streak! +1 Confidence
We won a close game at home! +4 Confidence
That was a great road win! +4 Confidence

————————————————————-

CB #21 L. McKelvin – Consistency 2 out of 5 | Dev Trait 1 out of 5

Recent Events:

We’re on a winning streak! +1 Confidence
We won a close game at home! +1 Confidence
That was a great road win! +1 Confidence

————————————————————-

So let’s take a look at a couple of things. As you can see individual performances and things like an interception, forced fumble, fumble recovery and other things will result in some confidence boost. Gilmore gained +3 Confidence for an interception.

The second thing you should take a look at is how the consistency rating affects how much confidence a player gets. CB #20 – Graham has a consistency rating of 3 out of 5 and received a +4 confidence for a close win at home. While CB #21 McKelvin only gained a +1 Confidence because his consistency is only 2 out of 5.

What this tells me is even if a guy has a consistency of 1 or 0 like EJ Manel had he still receives a +1 Confidence but who knows how much confidence a player will gain if he has a 5 out of 5 consistency, I can see this getting to maybe +7.

It’s also worth noting that the Dev. Trait has nothing to do with how confidence works as it’s geared toward XP which I will cover in another blog.

Note: when you are in game prep and are looking to develop a player it will show you his last 3 events, this could be XP gained or experienced gained.

Confidence Affect Players In Game

So now that you know what Confidence is, let’s talk about how this affects your player in-game. I wish I had some screens to show you but if your player loses confidence, it will sometimes show in the game. Perfect example that I saw was it was my 3rd straight loss but I didn’t throw to my TE Scott Chandler at all in those 3 games. His confidence was shot and I had used all my Game Prep getting Sammy Watkins up so I paid no attention to him in my Game Prep. Let’s just say he dropped the first 2 passes I threw to him. He got hit, so it wasn’t wide open drops but still passes that he normally hangs on to. His CTH rating had dropped down 3 points. This was done to represent players that outperform their expectations, as well as players that are struggling. So if confidence is high ratings will go up.

Note: Every player starts Connected Franchise with a “normal” confidence rating of 50. Once confidence start dropping to below 25-30 or increasing to 75-80, that’s when ratings changes will occur.

How to Improve Confidence in Game Prep

So now that you know what confidence is, how it affects a player in-game, let’s talk about how to improve a player’s confidence outside of game results and player performances; let’s talk Game Prep Drills that increase a player’s confidence.

In the main Game Prep screen there is an option to ‘Improve Confidence’. Under this option you’ll be able to upgrade your players’ confidence by doing some simulated activities.

Here are some of the simulated activities I saw with my time with Madden NFL 15. Some of these are :

So that’s going to do it on confidence in Madden NFL 15 CFM. Hopefully I didn’t forget anything but if I did, please ask me questions and I’ll try to answer them. I’ll have some more blogs on different aspects of CFM and if there is something in particular you want me to cover just put it in the comments below.

Does the game take into account the depth chart of real NFL teams for confidence hits? For instance most teams use 3-4 WR’s will a guy take a negative hit for being the 3rd/4th WR even if he is still producing in games?

Shopmaster

So it doesn’t take in depth chart but it does note who is a starter and who is a back up. This determines the confidence of players. I don’t think scheme is involved.

zz

so 34 vs 43 they don’t have the right players as starters?

Shopmaster

I think they put both MLB as starters. I remember seeing that, good question. But as far as WRs, I don’t think they account for 4th string WRs being starters just the first 2. If he’s producing, he’ll still do good cause his expectations won’t be that high. But also if oyu lose he won’t take a big confidence hit because he’s lower on the depth chart. I hope I’m making sense here. Great questions though!

zach

So Each Player Has So Many Hours Per Week. How Come Your TE Didn’t Improve At All In Your Prep?

balcobomber25

Your team has so many total hours for prep. He used all his on Watkins and ignored the rest of the team.

Shopmaster

You are right, you are not going to be able to develop everyone on your team every week. You need to pick and choose who you want to develop more in Game Prep.

Shopmaster

You only have a set number for the whole team not individuals.

brza

Hey Shop, I’ve got a bunch of mainly CFM questions and would appreciate any answers you can give. I hope its ok to post them here:

– Is there an option to start a franchise with the Rookie Draft?

– Is there a true waiver wire for free agency or is it still just a
first-come first-serve fre for all? This is always a huge hassle in
online CFMs because there are so many good players just sitting in FA to
start the season. A waiver wire or bidding feature during the season
would be hugely appreciated.

– Is their a true draft board available where we can rank our prospects
and actually have the CPU pick according to our board if we can’t be
online during the draft in a multiplayer CFM?

– Are assisted tackles finally counted in Play Now and Franchise?

– Have commissioners been given more control of the CFM, for example:

– the ability to reset the results of a game
– the ability to limit XP payouts/spending

– the ability to restrict position changes

– Can scripted videos, ie game intros or the Superbowl celebration, be
recorded this year? I wanted to create a recap video of our CFM SB in
M25 but certain segments couldn’t be recorded.

– Are there more options faces and body types for create a coach in CFM?

– Do the created coaches still look horrible compared to the individually modeled real coaches?

– Do higher level coaches actually have an advantage this year? Last
year the packages for coaches costed more the higher their level but
didn’t give any additional bonuses so it made more sense to start as a
level 1 coach than to be level 30

– Is the hurry-up offense the same as last year? Only access to 4 plays
per formation and still possible to get the snap off in less than 5
seconds? Or is it now realistic like NCAA 14 (slower to the line and
access to all plays with the same personnel)?

Shopmaster

1. No option to start with a rookie draft. Fantasy Draft though. You could however, advance to after the first Super Bowl and start there.

2. No true Waiver Wire

3. No Draft Board

4. Assisted Tackles is supposed to be in there, haven’t checked.

5. Those commisioner tools are not in

6. Not sure, but I don’t think so.

7. No, same old coach creation options.

8. Yes

9. Not sure

10. Yes, like NCAA

Soulfly620

if you sim seasons, i find i always end up with extremely poor records and a team full of 0 confidence players, this new franchise SUCKS for simulating.